


Under the Skin

by TeamHammerWeasel



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pre-Thor (2011), Scarification, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 23:17:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17497241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamHammerWeasel/pseuds/TeamHammerWeasel
Summary: An exercise in trust shouldn't involve knives.





	Under the Skin

“The key,” Loki said before they began, “is to ignore it no matter how much it hurts.”  
  
It stung less than his words had suggested it would. In the end, Thor found it easy to sit still and relax his arm and recall the agony from when he had broken his arm by dashing it against a rock during a practice fight. Compared to that, his brother carving a couple of runes into his skin was nothing. They didn’t even cut deep.  
  
He kept his word and didn’t look till the word was bandaged out of sight. “How long should I keep it like this?”  
  
“Two weeks, starting from today. It will do you no harm.” Loki put the knife away and met Thor’s raised eyebrow without a single change in expression. “Don’t you trust me?”

 

* * *

  
  
The first day, the cuts merely itched. The second, he no longer felt them, but instead felt light-headed whenever he stood up.  
  
Still, it was a minor hindrance that didn’t keep him from living his life to the fullest, easy to explain away by him not having eaten enough while they had been out. His friends made some questioning looks at his bandages, but made no comment. He could well imagine their shock if he admitted what was underneath them, their warnings about how foolish it was to allow anyone you didn’t fully trust to lay spells on you.  
  
That was the thing. He wanted to trust Loki, even if the cup of ale that had exploded in his hand the month prior suggested that perhaps he shouldn’t.  
  
Still, as he lay down for the night, feeling drowsier and heavier than he ever recalled doing before, he couldn’t help but wonder.

 

* * *

  
  
A week had passed when he was struck by a sudden fever, not so serious he felt the need to alert any healers about it, but one that made him retire to bed after lunch all the same.  
  
“When have you ever been ill before?” Lady Sif asked when she came to visit, clearly suspecting skulduggery despite Thor’s careful attempts to conceal his bandaged arm beneath a blanket.  
  
“I’ll see a healer about it if it doesn’t go away by the day after tomorrow,” he conceded, then turned to his side, hoping he could somehow read the runes through the fabric.

 

* * *

  
  
The fever didn’t go away. In fact, if the way in which it rose each day was any indication, it had made itself at home. It wasn’t long till Thor found himself drowsing between sleep and wakefulness and too exhausted to raise more than a finger.  
  
By the third day, his friends staged an intervention. “We may not know what is happening, but we do know you need a healer,” said Lady Sif, her jaw set, her eyes mirroring the concern on the faces of The Warriors Three.  
  
It took all the effort he could muster to convince them that all he needed was more rest. It wouldn’t be long till his absence at official functions would go from being noticeable to a genuine issue, but he told himself it would be fine for a few days longer. He could cope.  
  
And the longer he coped, the longer he could pretend his brother hadn’t deceived him.

 

* * *

  
  
And then, finally, he had made it to two weeks. His ears rang as he stood up and threw on as few clothes he needed to remain decent, then stumbled to find Loki.  
  
Loki set aside his book and greeted him with a frown. “You look dreadful.”  
  
Thor responded only by shoving his bandaged arm towards him. “Take it off.”  
  
“Is it time already?” Quick as thought, Loki was on his feet and unwrapping the dressings.  
  
Thor stared intently at where the runes would be unveiled, but even after Loki pulled the last of the bandages away, it took him several heartbeats to comprehend what he was seeing.  
  
_“Enhazel?_ ” he finally asked.  
  
Loki smirked. “To mark a battlefield.”  
  
He was no expert on sorcery, but it didn’t take an expert to tell there wasn’t a speck of magic to the slowly healing scars, and never had been. He lurched heavily down to the nearest available seat, nearly crushing Loki’s book in the process.  
  
“I suppose this means you didn’t trust me.” Loki sounded distant, almost wounded.  
  
"I’m sorry. It was an eerie coincidence, that’s all.”  
  
“Not exactly.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“You mean you still haven’t noticed?” Without waiting to be asked, Loki sat down next to him and undid the fastenings on his tunic. That done, he plunged his hand down Thor’s collar, reaching for the back of his neck.  
  
Sudden sparks of pain radiated through his entire body.  
  
“It’s a curse,” said Loki as he redacted his fingers, the pain fading away with them. “A mild one, of course. You have been carrying it since we returned home from Alfheim.”  
  
Thor could only balk. “You knew, yet never brought it up?”  
  
“I thought this would be a good time to see if you truly trusted me.”  
  
“An ill way to go about it, brother.” He was more baffled than incensed, but that didn’t mean he didn’t recognise a dirty trick when he saw one. “Why would you possibly need to know it so badly?”  
  
“Because of this.” Loki’s hand was back on his shoulder, mercifully far from the epicentre of the curse. Thor had just enough time to consider just how close their faces were to one another and how the lights in the room were reflected in Loki’s eyes when Loki leaned closer still and kissed him.  
  
After a perfectly silent moment during which the world dwindled to just the two of them and all else ceased to matter, they reluctantly parted.  
  
It took Thor a long moment to regain his voice, and when he did, only one word came out. “Why?”  
  
Loki met his stare with only a shadow of his previous smile remaining.  “Because I trust you.”

 

* * *

  
  
Even all these years later, staring down into the abyss his brother had disappeared into, Thor often found his mind drifting back to those times when the strange non-smile Loki had given him was the biggest of his problems.  
  
In a way, it still was.  
  
Removing his bracer, he looked at the unmarked skin of his forearm and thought of the bizarre word Loki had carved into it. The thin white lines were no longer visible, bu the still felt them as though they had sunk into the flesh underneath instead. The runes may not have been a spell, but the kiss that had followed them definitely had been.  
  
_“Don’t you trust me?”_  
  
Even now, he had no answer.


End file.
